Saturday, June 7, 2014

Copper Mining Giant, Newmont Invokes Force Majeure at Its Batu Hijau

Mining giant Newmont Nusa Tenggara in the U.S said during Thursday that it has notified the government that it was declaring force majeure at its Batu Hijau Copper mine, located in West Nusa Tenggara.

The company also decided to grant leave with reduced pay for most of their employees in the mine.

Newmont and its U.S partner Freeport Indonesia, which contributes about 97 percent of Indonesian copper production, is in arguments in the government recently for imposing an export tax on January.

The controversial export tax was imposed by the government on the miners that used to export semi-finished minerals in order to force to produce their own ores locally and thereby increasing the value for the country.

Martiono Hadianto, Newmont Nusa Tenggara CEO said that despite their best effort, they had not been export copper concentrate since January, and they still did not have an export permit. He added that they had no other option other than to declare force majeure.

The company will go on with the selling of copper concentrate to PT Smelting at Gresik, Indonesia’s only copper plant from its storage, throughout this year, based on the company report that came after a new government drive to force a breakthrough.